WHEN it comes to Saint Lucia and Guyana, there’s so much that binds them together that’s just not seen, simply because it’s never been shown – like their respective entries into the Oil & Gas markets, in which Saint Lucia – without any oil – preceded Guyana by over four decades.

Indeed, Saint Lucia has had an ‘Oil Refineries Act’ on its lawbooks since Independence in 1979 when Hess Oil rode into town over four decades ago.

The growth of environmental consciousness worldwide and in the USA, after major oil spills, involving giant tankers delivering from the Middle East, led to Federal legal restrictions on the size of supertankers allowed to enter US seaports, Big Oil needed to find new ways – routes – to overcome that problem.

Applying the accepted legal principle that ‘It’s okay to avoid, but illegal to evade paying tax’, the companies selected small Caribbean ports for the supertankers banned from US ports to deliver to in island nations with no such legal barriers.

The supertankers would transfer the deposited oil to smaller tankers (within the legal US limit) for onward trans-shipment to mainland refineries and storage facilities, as well as in smaller dependent regional territories (like in the US and British Virgin Islands and the Dutch Antilles).

Saint Lucia became a major trans-shipment port and transfer point for giant-sized oil shipments bound for the US due to popular concerns about environmental risks.

Interestingly, the Saint Lucia legislation is entitled the Hess Oil Refineries Act was passed ahead of the crucial 1979 General Elections as the project was sold as an investment that could eventually lead to establishment of an oil refinery in Saint Lucia.

Four decades later the trans-shipment terminal is no longer owned by Hess, but it’s still protected by the Oil Refineries Act that keeps royalty payments (cents per barrel) at predetermined levels for long periods.

Buckeye, the new American owners, are involved in different aspects of the energy business — and coexist with all Saint Lucia governments, like Hess successfully did.

Trinidad & Tobago has a wealth of experience in managing oil and gas and all CARICOM nations have had common and different experiences at varying levels managing Oil & Gas and Energy sectors.

It’s always been possible for non-oil producing Caribbean states to have explored cooperation to spread the manufacturing of lubricants, greases and other petroleum products, including storage, packing and distribution of local supplies, but limited thoughts and eyes were focused on the bigger picture of the energy industry while the main players concentrated on only buying and selling petrol and cooking gas.

The energy options today are wider, as are the related options for new oil-producing nations to chisel their own places into the wider regional and global landscapes – but so are the challenges, including not overlooking or underestimating risks and hoping for the best while planning and preparing for the worst.

In this regard, planning and preparing for inevitable oils pills is of paramount importance as they threaten not only the countries of origin and destination but all along the routes, as well as neighbouring countries and those closest to wherever it may happen.

Other environmental disasters are also inherent in oil extraction and shipment, storage and export, all of which cannot be prevented and none of which can be predicted – and therefore why they must always be prepared for by oil-producing states.

Nearly every Caribbean island knows what a small oil spill looks like, but none should have to learn what a major one feels like, which is why several support an appeal by Peru at the Organisation of American States (OAS) for international binding regulations to govern responsibility for the consequences of oil spills.

In Peru’s case, a January spill of 11,000 barrels of oil belonging to a Spanish company caused such damage to the country’s beaches and the wider economy that its tourism industry will take years to recover from.

Risks were also likely examined during Guyana’s recent three-day energy conference, as any spill in any of the many blocs being dug open for the world’s most expensive liquid can cause both repairable and irreparable harm to more than just Guyana’s coastline.

Likewise, the risk-avoidance factors that all oil-producing countries must also consider in relation to protection against political and economic backlashes for any number of reasons over which they may have no control, as seen again and again, as in Europe today.

Germany has had to forcibly, but sensibly, decide to make a stitch in time to avoid its Nord Stream 2 project becoming an ultimate victim of threats to kill it, just like all the unrest in Ukraine hasn’t led to Russian pipelines through Ukrainian territory being shut-off by either side.

But while the ultimate NATO and G-7 goal is to hit Russia hardest where it’ll hurt most, European leaders are silently hoping all will end well-enough not to force them to have to depend on other sources for more expensive oil and gas – and especially in the wake of the current phenomenal increases in prices worldwide caused by the COVID-inspired global Supply Chain shipping problems.

Cutting noses to spite faces just isn’t a trait associated with sensible political leaders, but, as in every individual case, it all depends on sensible political leadership, which, obviously, is nowhere near extinct in the ‘One Guyana’ under construction, a continuing work in progress fuelled by Oil and Gas in safe hands, planning today for way beyond tomorrow.